Avnet Abacus has appointed Michael Knappmann as director for Central Europe. Mr Knappmann has taken up office in Poing near Munich where he is responsible for the regions Germany and Switzerland. Mr Knappmann will be answerable to the president of Avnet Abacus, Graham McBeth. Mr Knappmann has more than 30 years distribution experience in the area of electronic components. He previously worked with Arrow where he had held the position of Director of Lighting Business Development for the EMEA region since July 2007.

Prior to that he had been the Vice President of Marketing responsible for active, passive, electromechanical and embedded components. He arrived at Arrow just as the company was taking over Sasco Semiconductor GmbH where he had worked for ten years. For seven of those years he had held the position of Managing Director and had also been a member of the executive board of the Spoerle group. Before moving to Sasco he held positions in Sales and General Management for five years at Future Electronics Germany GmbH. Avnet Abacus specialises in plug-in connectors, passive and electromechanical components and power supplies and batteries.